Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LYVIA
Origin unknown. They’ve either forgotten or refuse to divulge the information.
– A Written History of the Itherians, by Olienna. Crystal Castle.
Lyvia – The Arx, Votruvia
Aviolet and pink glow erupted in my vision.
Varying sizes of glowing crystals bordered the circular space, stretching from the floor to a strange mist hanging above.
A wide stone walkway followed an elaborate spiral design, hovering above dark water and leading to a set of stairs.
At the top of the steps, the surrounding crystals cast their light on a grand marble altar.
Eight colonnades bordered the altar, stretching into the canopied mist above.
The pink-white glow from the crystals threw the space in a soft blanket of light. Kellan stepped in front of me and palmed a rubelline dagger, the white stone igniting in a blaze of red.
My powers surged beneath my skin and lingered in my palms, the two of them well-rested and quick to my call, though for some strange reason, I suspected we needn’t fear this place.
Our cautious steps echoed against the stone walkway, and we wound around the room until we came to the stairs leading to the altar.
We climbed cautiously, my heart slowing its beat as we reached the serene landing.
“No markings,” Kellan mused as he circled the wide altar. I shook my head in agreement. The marbled carving was completely bare, not a scratch or etch of a chisel, the hard stone almost soft as I ran my fingers over the wide top.
“I wonder who was worshipped here,” I murmured, straightening and tugging my hair out of the loose knot, letting it fall over my shoulders in a soft hush of waves. “Perhaps a god before the Starlings arrived in this world?”
Kellan had stilled, and I snapped my face in his direction, tensing as I waited for whatever danger he’d sensed.
But as my gaze caught his, an unwavering confidence and contentment smoothed his features. His dark eyes softened as they landed on me, and his lips parted. His gentle stare dipped to the loose waves of my hair before skipping to my lips.
My throat bobbed, and I tore my gaze away.
“Let’s be quick,” I breathed. “Check for any signs of the key or the lock.”
Kellan grunted his agreement after a heartbeat, and we quickly swept through the holy space.
“Damn,” I muttered. “There’s nothing here.”
Kellan scanned the crystal walls of the cavern as he straightened, and he squinted.
“I think they’re changing color,” he noted, moving toward me and pointing to the opposite side we entered. Across the chamber, the pink light slowly softened into a violet before darkening into a deep purple. “And I think that’s another door. Let’s keep going.”
I followed his gaze to the purple crystals at the far end, slowly shifting to a midnight blue. Beautiful.
We hurried across the winding stone path, reaching the other end of the chamber.
As we pushed through the translucent door, a spear of wind shot through the tunnel ahead of us, slamming the crystal door shut and forcing us out of the serene chamber of crystals and several feet into the waiting path.
Kellan’s hand gripped my arm, and my powers surged at the drastic shift in energy, the sparkling, holy light from the previous chamber vanishing.
A thick, oppressive darkness choked out the light attempting to filter through the altar chamber.
The crystals shifted from lovely, standing gems to a labyrinth of razor-sharp glass, the jagged pieces thin and sharp enough to slice off a hand.
My powers reared in response, slamming into a thick, unyielding wall as we stepped forward. What?
“Rubelline lines,” Kellan murmured, his body pressed against my back as we stayed utterly still, so as not to step into the waiting knives surrounding us.
My head tilted up, the back of it sliding against his chest as I traced the barely perceptible, marbled red lines spiderwebbing along the black walls into the darkness above.
“Think this means we’re getting close?” I asked, taking a steadying breath.
“Yes,” he replied, loosening his grip on my arm. His eyes traced the darkness beneath my skin, the living ebony lines stagnant and frozen under the power of the rubelline. “Walk very, very carefully.”
I slid my boot against the damp floor, reaching past a long, thin spike of glass and winding around its jagged edge. The air around us grew colder. A wet breeze filtered in from whatever lay ahead, and a strange clicking echoed from above.
“Eghan House,” I said after a moment, needing a distraction from the deadly labyrinth we strode through. “You told me once there wasn’t an ounce of goodness in you.”
Kellan’s steps paused behind me.
“That’s true,” he murmured, resuming his steps. “There is no limit to the evil I’d commit to protect the people I love.”
My stomach flipped as the last word rolled off his tongue.
“That doesn’t make you all bad,” I responded after a moment. “In fact, I think it could make you a hero in the eyes of some. Your mother for one… The children at Eghan House… Even the people of Borva seem incredibly indebted to you. You’ve protected them.”
The huff leaving Kellan’s lips brushed against the back of my head.
“Of that, I’ve failed,” he spat, a bitterness edging the words.
My brows pinched, but I kept my focus on the sharp line of barely visible glass. I opened my mouth and paused, recalling what he’d shared with me in the Death Dunes and Mother Eghan’s devastation.
“Morwyn,” I breathed, slowing to a stop and carefully turning toward him. “You think you failed your sister.”
Shadows draped over Kellan’s face, but his white scar lightened as his lips pursed.
My hand paused as it hovered over his chest. I gently shook my head as I replayed Kellan’s words from the Death Dunes last summer when we were tied together in that ice hut.
Bayne has stolen much from the Lords of Marisarma… I am talking about people…
“Morwyn went willingly with the crew of the Evecta,” I said gently, letting my hand rest against his chest. “She thought you and your mother were dead. She escaped the violence in Votruvia, and she had a wonderful life.”
Kellan’s throat bobbed, but he jerked his head, motioning me to continue.
“And she had two wonderful children,” I said as I wound around another deadly shard of glass. “They wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t left with Bear. And Bayne.”
I waited for a pained regret to come after speaking his name, but nothing of the sort arrived.
Our parting had felt…empty, yet I didn’t mourn the loss of what we had.
My brows furrowed. Should I? And should I have had that conversation with him as soon as we’d defeated Dark King Daimos?
There had been no time… Isla needed me. Lida needed him…
Should I have approached things differently with him after we returned from Tynan’s realm? Why could I never get my timing right?
“Stop blaming yourself,” Kellan said softly, and my chest constricted.
“I’m not,” I muttered, carefully stepping over a large, broken shard of glass.
“Liar,” he countered. “I don’t need a Bellator bond in place to know what it is you feel.”
My throat constricted as the feeling I had yet to admit threatened to surge forward at his words. He didn’t know what I felt. And how could I possibly tell him? After what he’d witnessed in the Abyss… After he’d experienced my hell, witnessing and suffering every dark moment of my life…
The feeling that had slowly sparked to life over the past year with him… It was what drove me through the Vael Lacrima, what tethered me to him as our air oath disappeared, and his own life force winked out. It was what made it possible for me to find him in Tynan’s Hell.
How dare I allow it to see the light, to blossom, after what I’d put him through?
And what hope did I have in him returning it?
Before the Vael Lacrima… Before Tynan’s Hell…
The mere thought had barely taken root, yet a glimpsing tendril of hope had existed.
That perhaps something similar lived inside him. But now?
My throat bobbed as I tried to swallow against its dryness, and I shook my head.
“Do you want to know what it is I feel?” he asked after a few moments of tense silence, his voice thick.
“Don’t,” I croaked, my head continuing to shake.
“Don’t what, Bonscaíh?” he rasped. His voice dropped an octave.
Something warm and desperate surged in my chest. Words caught in my throat, and I didn’t dare look back at him. He couldn’t possibly—
“Don’t fall in love with you?” he asked, reaching a calloused hand toward mine.
I stilled. My breath caught as he slipped his fingers along the top of my hand, and his thumb ran a soft line down my palm.
I slowly turned toward him, dragging my gaze to his. I was met with a fierce, unyielding certainty, and my chest nearly caved in.
“How can—” I started as I took a hasty step forward without looking, my foot stepping into thin air.
My heart banged against my ribcage, and Kellan’s hand snatched my arm just in time to swing me to the edge of a wide crater as the path ended at an abrupt drop off. His arm pressed against my chest as I heaved.
I blinked rapidly against the darkness, and my sight slowly adjusted as I assessed the space before us.
We stood upon a two-foot-wide ledge that lined a massive crater.
A strange, twisty tree stretched from the center of the hole up to our level, two sickly branches reaching to the edge in opposite directions.
My senses prickled, and an overwhelming sensation of doom washed over me. This place was not safe.
Kellan stepped away and inched toward the connecting branches. I followed slowly, grateful my life hadn’t ended along with the conversation we were having…
“It has to be in there,” I breathed as I stared at the twisty tree.
We dropped our packs and examined the rickety-looking walkway. Kellan grunted his agreement and tested the spindly branch with his foot.
“Seems to hold,” he murmured. “Don’t look down,” he added with a wink.
My stomach lurched as I did the opposite. Rocky walls descended into nothing. Kellan stepped onto the branch, and I took a deep breath, steeling myself and holding my arms out to the side as I followed.
Kellan’s hand snapped out to mine as soon as we reached the end, and he pulled me into a small space within the black tree. I heaved a sigh as we found our footing, Kellan’s hand still wrapped around mine, and our faces close enough to share air.
A snap cracked through the air, and my stomach lurched as I whipped my head around in time to see the branch we used to cross break from its connecting point on the edge of the crater and curl in toward the tree.
We scrambled out of the way as broken sticks and bark hurtled toward us, tripping over a gnarled knot and falling into the flat base of the tree.
“There’s one more bridge,” Kellan reassured after getting to his feet. “We have a way out.” He reached a hand down and hauled me to my feet.
I brushed myself off, the black bark delicate and paper-thin, little bits of it drifting off and floating down like ash. Kellan’s face paled, his dark, cropped beard stark against it as his body went rigid. I slowly turned around and followed his gaze to the center of the dark tree.
Silver, sticky thread strung together in a dazzling web of swirls and patterns, stretching from the surrounding black branches and coming together in the center, where it held a strange glass container.
We moved closer, examining the web that looked eerily similar to those I’d seen in countless Death Scholar excavations. The hairs on my arms pricked up, and I scanned the surrounding branches, searching for the source of the web.
“Is this the key, or the lock?” I asked, doubt plaguing my words as I leaned forward, careful not to touch the sticky web.
“I have no idea,” Kellan murmured, narrowing his brows. “It looks like a crystal wine decanter.”
The U-shaped glass in the center of the web was hollow, the opening of one end wider than the other. What the hell? I shook my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “We’ve come this far. This is the end of the path. There were no other entrances to this cavern.”
Kellan ran a hand over his face and began to pace. “Then we don’t leave without it,” he replied quietly. “I don’t see any way around getting it out without disturbing the web.”
I eyed the tangled, sticky mess holding the glass container and nodded my head despite the twisting in my gut.
“We grab it and go,” Kellan continued, moving away from the web and scanning the other exits. He poked his head out of the dark opening and turned back, giving a confident nod and unsheathing his curved blade.
I reached a hand back and withdrew Enya’s intricate blade, the braided hilt smooth against my palm.
“Ready when you are, Bonscaíh,” he muttered. A mischievous glint brightened his dark eyes as he cocked a brow.
A surge of butterflies squashed the growing anxiety, and I matched his smirk with my own before I reached forward to pull the glass decanter free.